Where do you stand digitally speaking on customer service? A Verizon Wireless story

I wish I had a screen shot of my Facebook post but I complained to Verizon Wireless about my Incredible before I headed to the store and the community responded first by saying since I went through six phones I was entitled to a different phone. I do not complain about customer service and I tend to give the companies the benefit of the doubt but this is different. I mean six phones is a little bit extreme to keep replacing with the same refurbished problem especially since the one that was replaced was replaced less than a month ago.

I have tweeted to @VerizonWireless but things go to deaf ears over and over again. I just wanted a new phone that does the same thing my old. I was never looking to upgrade or get anything for free but just have a phone that works longer than three weeks. There is something wrong with the phone I have and refurbishing them wasn’t solving the problem.

I did not get any kind of response and when I got home I went to see what was happening with the post I asked questions on and it was deleted. Not only did they not solve my questions but they deleted it and now there is only corporate content on there and nothing posted by people talking about their products. Verizon never responded to my question on the Facebook page either the community only did.

I am not really wanting to go all United Breaks Guitars here or anything because I decided to visit a different Verizon store than the first one I was going to because I got sick of the same thing. The entire process took almost forty five minutes but I did finally get an Incredible 2. Orignal Incredible has been nothing but a headache and the process of getting stuff done over and over again and not even acknowledging me online was ridiculous.

I get companies don’t like user generated content on their page but it is problem solving that builds trust and helps establish relationships. I have seen this on other pages where they frown upon someone asking questions or posting content on fan pages.

You can not have an open relationship with a guest or customer if you ignore what they are feeling. That is bad public relations and even worse customer service. Yes my problem did get solved but this should have been fixed four phones ago and not on the sixth one. The Incredible is a huge fail and even though I love it when it works but when you are replacing defective devices with more defective devices it does not make for good customer service.

Would I be writing this if I had been answered on the Facebook page or Tweeted to? No, and I probably would have had more love for them but since I am being ignored which is not a good feeling I think it is time for companies to actually listen to the consumer.

You can be on social media all day and just push your holiday sales and your new products but when something breaks and breaks and breaks again you need to be strong enough to say, “Yes this is a problem and no this isn’t marketing but customer service, it fits into a different silo but we are all people.”

What is so wrong with giving the consumer the reigns to talk about your product on your page even if it is bad? I could have easily ended the day with “This is a crappy product but the manager at the 12 and Dequindre store in Warren did a really great job even if it did take almost an hour.”

Hiding behind a logo is fine and dandy but in the end we are all consumers and we all just want to be heard and NOT deleted.

5 Responses

These same things have happened with me as well with a few companies, Spotify being the specific one I can think of. If you don’t want to respond to your customers, why are you in business?

I think as entrepreneurs or the new wave of professionals, we need to start implementing the “Thank You Economy” approach that Gary Vaynerchuk talked about. The more I hear about it (still haven’t read the book) the more I believe business will go that way. First, we have to make that commitment with ourselves.

When you are in a store and you need help you are expected to have the utmost high standards of customer service no matter what happens. But hiding behind an avatar or just allowing for a one sided conversation is bad business. If you don’t want to talk to the customers at least have the INSIGHTS available to create a document with some frequently asked questions.

If you are listening you will know what those questions are so even if you don’t want to follow the person on Twitter you are taking a proactive approach. This I have seen with professional sports teams and event day questions where they are not being followed by someone but they have questions. If the business created a document with answers to the questions they are still providing customer service by explaining their policies in English.

Very sorry about your experience, Jamie. I’d like to help. I sent you a tweet so we can take this to an offline channel and I can learn more and we can get this figured out. Hope to talk with you soon. – Michelle, Verizon MI

I am not entirely sure Verizon even sent my phone I never got a tracking number it was only done over the phone and it has been almost two days when it is usually next day delivery. This is horrible and I am really angry at this point.
I need to make phone calls and even though this internet thing is great not everyone is tech savvy. What is the point of having a provider that provides crap replacement phones and then when you upgrade doesn’t provide the actual phone you are upgrading to?